ESPN drew a 1.5 U.S. rating and 2.3 million viewers for The ESPYs on Wednesday night, flat in rating, but down 6% in viewership from last year's telecast. This year's audience, however, is up from a 1.3 rating and 2.0 million viewers in '11. The event has aired live since '10 after being shown on tape delay from '04-09 (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).

ESPYs AUDIENCE TREND ON ESPN

YEAR

DAY

RAT.

VIEWERS (000)

'13

Wednesday

1.5

2,269

'12

Wednesday

1.5

2,415

'11

Wednesday

1.3

1,984

'10

Wednesday

1.7

2,611

'09

Sunday

1.5

2,271

'08

Monday

2.0

3,264

'07

Sunday

1.8

2,779

'06

Sunday

2.3

3,624

'05

Sunday

2.1

3,274

'04

Sunday

2.0

3,160

CANADIAN BACON: NBC Sports Network had its first Izod IndyCar Series doubleheader of the season last weekend, with the Honda Indy Toronto averaging 273,000 viewers for Saturday’s race and 258,000 viewers for Sunday’s telecast. Last year, the one-day race averaged 1.1 million viewers on ABC on a Sunday afternoon (Karp). Meanwhile, Rogers Sportsnet, which took over IndyCar rights in Canada from TSN this season, “saw an already small niche audience” drop 35% this year, with Saturday’s telecast getting 145,000 viewers and Sunday getting 151,000 viewers. The audience for the Toronto race has been “slipping for several years after peaking near 550,000 on TSN two years ago” (THEGLOBEANDMAIL.com, 7/16).

NOTES: In Albany, Pete Dougherty wrote of the trend of low audience numbers for the MLB All-Star Game, “Virtually every regular-season game is available, making the all-stars less special; it has transformed from a game of meaning into an exhibition, even with World Series home-field advantage at stale” (TIMESUNION.com, 7/18).

The charts below lists final ratings from recent sports telecasts.

TELECAST

DATE

NET

TIME (ET)

RAT.

VIEWERS (000)

MLB: (regional)

7/13

Fox

7:12-10:25pm

1.9

2,982

PGA Tour: John Deere Classic: Final Round*

7/14

CBS

3:00-7:20pm

1.6

n/a

NASCAR Nationwide Series: New Hampshire

7/13

ABC

3:30-6:08pm

1.4

2,087

CONCACAF Gold Cup: Mexico-Canada

7/11

UniMas

10:44pm-1:04am

1.0

1,957

European Tour: Scottish Open: Final Round

7/14

NBC

12:00-2:50pm

1.0

1,450

PGA Tour: John Deere Classic: Third Round

7/13

CBS

3:00-6:00pm

0.9

n/a

CONCACAF Gold Cup: Honduras-El Salvador

7/12

UniMas

9:13-11:34pm

0.5

1,195

U.S. Senior Open: Third Round

7/14

NBC

2:50-6:00pm

0.8

1,140

"NASCAR Countdown"

7/13

ABC

3:00-3:30pm

0.8

1,022

U.S. Senior Open: Third Round

7/13

NBC

3:00-6:00pm

0.6

796

European Tour: Scottish Open: Third Round

7/13

NBC

12:00-2:27pm

0.6

793

CONCACAF Gold Cup: U.S.-Cuba

7/13

Fox

3:00-5:00pm

0.6

n/a

CONCACAF Gold Cup: U.S.-Belize

7/9

UniMas

10:40pm-1:00am

0.4

702

CONCACAF Gold Cup: Costa Rica-Cuba

7/9

UniMas

8:10-10:30pm

0.4

605

"Golf Central Live"

7/13

NBC

2:27-3:00pm

0.4

502

NOTE: * = Final round concluded on Golf Channel due to a five-hole playoff.